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Tuesday, 15 September 2015

Reducing Food Waste With Greenredeem

Last week I got to team up with some of the local community and take part in the Less Waste Challenge with greenredeem. For those of you that have never heard of them before, Greenredeem are a company who the local councils in my area use to incentivise us to recycle more.

Special guest for the evening was Martha Collison from last year's Great British Bake Off. She talked to us about how she hated waste and advised us that she uses her freezer a lot to freeze things such as egg whites and yolks, cake and fresh fruit, in order to minimise food waste.

To demonstrate how simple it is to whip up some fantastic tasting food out of leftovers that may usually head to the bin, we took part in the leftovers challenge. Each team was given a selection of items that were heading towards their best before date or had been left over from a previous meal. With the help of some store cupboard essentials we had to create an appetizing meal. Martha would then taste each dish and announce her winner. So no pressure there then!

I was in group 2 and had the task of producing a meal from some left over chicken breast, a lime and some carrot and courgette. We decided to marinade the chicken in a lime, chilli, garlic, ginger and honey dressing that we made using the store cupboard ingredients. We then chopped the carrot and courgette finally and added this and the chicken mixture to some tortillas. We were pretty pleased with the taste but what would Martha think?

We had some stiff competition, with starters being made salmon, horseradish, dill and creme fraiche. And a lovely dessert using left over maderia with fruit and a cognac cream.

I have to say there is something quite scary about standing behind a table with someone tasting your food. Luckily Martha liked everything and we were chosen as her favourite!

It was a fun evening which really illustrated how easy it is to reduce food wastage with a bit of thought and creativity. I would have quite happily eaten any of the dishes that were made.

If like me you have signed up to the Greenredeem site and not really used it, I suggest you take another look. They have taken on feedback and made it easier to report your recycling by signing up to a e mail reminder with a click through link. They are also working on getting more local deals as well as charity donations you can spend your points on.

We were then treated to a meal of local produce and quiz Martha on the real story behind Alaska-gate! Practicing their less waste policy we also took home some local cheese that we were too full to eat!

What food waste reducing tips do you have? Do you have a favourite recipe that you make with leftovers?